Department of Biological Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA.
J R Soc Interface. 2012 Mar 7;9(68):596-9. doi: 10.1098/rsif.2011.0716. Epub 2011 Nov 30.
The ultimate survival of humanity is dependent upon colonization of other planetary bodies. Key challenges to such habitation are (patho)physiologic changes induced by known, and unknown, factors associated with long-duration and distance space exploration. However, we currently lack biological models for detecting and studying these changes. Here, we use a remote automated culture system to successfully grow an animal in low Earth orbit for six months. Our observations, over 12 generations, demonstrate that the multi-cellular soil worm Caenorhabditis elegans develops from egg to adulthood and produces progeny with identical timings in space as on the Earth. Additionally, these animals display normal rates of movement when fully fed, comparable declines in movement when starved, and appropriate growth arrest upon starvation and recovery upon re-feeding. These observations establish C. elegans as a biological model that can be used to detect changes in animal growth, development, reproduction and behaviour in response to environmental conditions during long-duration spaceflight. This experimental system is ready to be incorporated on future, unmanned interplanetary missions and could be used to study cost-effectively the effects of such missions on these biological processes and the efficacy of new life support systems and radiation shielding technologies.
人类的最终生存取决于对其他行星体的殖民。这种居住面临的关键挑战是（病理）生理变化，这些变化是由与长期和远距离太空探索相关的已知和未知因素引起的。然而，我们目前缺乏用于检测和研究这些变化的生物模型。在这里，我们使用远程自动培养系统成功地在近地轨道上培养动物长达六个月。我们的观察结果跨越了 12 代，表明多细胞土壤线虫秀丽隐杆线虫从卵发育到成年，并在太空中产生与地球上相同时间的后代。此外，这些动物在充分进食时表现出正常的运动速度，在饥饿时运动速度相当下降，在饥饿时适当停止生长，在恢复进食时恢复生长。这些观察结果确立了秀丽隐杆线虫作为一种生物模型，可以用来检测动物在长期太空飞行中对环境条件的生长、发育、繁殖和行为变化。这个实验系统已经准备好被应用于未来的无人星际任务中，并可以用于经济有效地研究这些任务对这些生物过程的影响，以及新的生命支持系统和辐射屏蔽技术的效果。
